


i just wanna give my all, the rise and fall (i just wanna leave my mark upon your heart)

by fortunatedaughter



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, the sex is coming later on in the fic ok? ok
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:24:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatedaughter/pseuds/fortunatedaughter
Summary: “You do this for you, or you don’t do it all. Because you can’t catch my pitches if you’re tryna catch everything else this world is throwing at you.”orthe ginny is a catcher, mike is a pitcher au and stuff happens.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **based on a prompt from tumblr user ginnysmike:** ginny baker is a catcher and mike lawson is a pitcher, just coming from the minors and joining the padres, she's trying to find her way with bonding/trusting mike, so they can be inseparable on the field, and maybe leads to something more?
> 
> it basically took on a life of its own, after that. this has been divided up into 5 bc i have no self-control! title from enough by delta goodrem

“But what do we know about Ginny Baker as an actual Major League catcher?”

“She’s quick on her feet, TIm, but the thing about catchers if you’ve gotta think before everyone else does and sometimes Ginny Baker takes a while to fall into that. Not to mention, you need an arm and while she’s got a few trick throws in her that help, —”

Ginny stares at the tiny little screen, but even as Amelia switches it off, turns to her, mutters words about this isn’t anything she’s done before — but none of that abates the ache in her chest. She has done this, sure. Her first game in the Single A, the Double A and even the Triple A; she had people commenting on her talent and her throwing arm, even a particularly mouthy reporter in Texas got shifty with her batting skills. She’s done that.

But not _this._

* * *

The thing about being a catcher is that pretty quickly on, you learn how to put people in boxes. You learn how to attach labels to them, to find their base instincts and gut reactions so you know — know who you’re stepping onto the field with, know what you’re gonna call before it even happens because you know the batters and you know your pitcher.

She doesn’t know Mike Lawson.

There’s a part of her that wants to know him, just as any woman faced with their childhood hero wants to know them, but — knowing him the way she needs to for this to work? Ginny isn’t quite sure she wants to throw herself down that rabbit hole.

* * *

(She learns what labels to put on him in that bathroom, cold water droplets clinging to her skin as gimmick and asterix and story for the grandkids ring in her ears. Mike Lawson is nothing but an aging pitcher with a mortality complex and a handful of commitment issues. Throw in a couple of narcissistic tendencies and that’s him in a nutshell.

She hates it when heroes fall off the damn pedestal.)

* * *

When she sits in her ‘room’ of the clubhouse an hour or so later, she knows why her game was so off --- why she had to force Al to pull her from the game, switch her out. (She hates it even more than Mike Lawson might be right. Maybe she is just a gimmick.)

* * *

“This you?” Mike growls, twinge in his elbow not quite yet faded, despite the ice he’d had on it a hour or so ago.

Al shakes his head, darkly glowering. “Came from upstairs.”

“This is a circus. I’m way too old to be joinin’ the circus.”

They think she can’t hear them is the thing. They think she’s just not there, not lurking behind the doorway. She hates it — because this isn’t what she wanted. She just wanted to play ball, wanted to catch for the best, wanted to throw some Cubs players out, wanted to feel that glory of crouching behind home plate. That is what she wanted — not this, a team falling apart at the seams, calling her a gimmick and a one trick pony and saying she’s apart of the goddamn circus.

But Ginny Baker isn’t the kind of girl who sits around feeling sorry for herself. She steals her spine, rounds the corner and clenches her jaw.

The team parts like the Red Sea with their heads and Ginny, for the first time since she was traded to the minors, wishes she’d never picked that damn baseball up when she was a kid.

(She amends her box statements. Mike Lawson is an aging asshole with a mortality complex whose too set in his ways to realize that change happens, whether you want it too or not. She knows that better than anyone.)

* * *

The vodka in her system loosens not only her limbs but also her lips.

“How am I gonna do this, Evelyn?” A hand presses against her eyes. “The fucker won’t let me read him. I can’t figure out what the fuck to call. I can’t know him unless he lets me know him.”

Evelyn shrugged. “Mike’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”

“I knew that within twenty minutes of meeting the fucker.” She snorted.

“You just gotta ride it out, sweets.” Evelyn sighed, taking a gulp of her Bloody Mary. “Can we do girl talk now?”

As Evelyn chatters away, Ginny wonders --- how can she ride this out if there’s nothing to ride? She’s dealt with this before, of course, pitchers who think she can’t do this but she’s proven herself. It seems Mike Lawson’s not willing to let her do that.

* * *

(In a bar however many miles away, Blip casts a glance over at Mike. ‘I’m hopin’ I’m gonna be watching the nods, the gestures and the trips to the mound. Man, what a beautiful thing that would be.’

Mike’s nail picks at the edge of his beer label. A beautiful sight indeed, he thinks, mind casting back to the fearsome look he saw in her eyes the first time she crouched behind home plate.)

* * *

“You do this for you, or you don’t do it all.”

The catchers gear is heavy, weighing her down but it’s nothing compared to how heavy her heart feels. (She knows that she’s off her game — knows she’s misreading the batters and calling the wrong pitches and that Lawson is just doing what she says because he’s that kind of guy on the field. Because he was told that Baker starts again in five days and Mike Lawson is nothing if not a team player, she thinks sarcastically.)

“Because you can’t catch my pitches if you’re tryna catch everything else this world is throwing at you.”

And that’s what it is, isn’t it? The world is throwing a million and one things on her. Expecting to be the perfect blend of the wanted woman and the brillant catcher; the fantasy and the perfect ideal. (She just wants to scream at these people — scream that she’s barely holding herself above water, that she’s drowning in a million and one issues and that she can barely look herself in the eye, so how the fuck is she supposed to be a goddamn role model for the rest of the world? But she’s Ginny Baker — and Ginny Baker doesn’t get to be those things, does she?)

Her teeth tug on her bottom lip. “Does this mean you’re gonna let me read you now?”

A sharp bark of laughter falls from his lips and he looks at her, — like he never fucking expected her to pick up on it, that he was keeping his face carefully guarded, testing her, waiting to verify if she was legit or just someone who got luck. (Mike Lawson was her childhood hero, sure, and impressing him is something she’s always going to want but his tests are nothing compared to the hell holes of Texas. She knew within twenty minutes of hearing his gimmick words through that bathroom vent he was keeping something from her.)

Mike’s gin jerks over her shoulder at the increasingly agitated umpire. “Might wanna head back down, startin’ to get a little awkward and all.”

Ginny shook her head, dropped the ball in his glove and turned, heading back down.

“Hey!” Mike calls out and Ginny turns her head over her shoulder.

“Mic drop.” He grins and the smile that blooms on her face in response — it’s perhaps the most real smile she’s given anyone in a long time.

* * *

Two straight screwballs —  _fastball_. She calls it, watches as he calls her off. Disappointment floods through her and Evelyn’s words ring in her head — Mike’s a stubborn son of a bitch.

But so is Ginny Baker and Ginny Baker has more riding on this game then Mike Lawson ever fucking will. Her eyes tighten and she tries to read him — begs him to let her through that careful mask of his, even for just a fucking second so they can do this.

Her fingers wiggle a four and he nods, imperceptible. A barely there smirk quirks at the edges of his lips and Ginny throws him back one in return.

They just might be able to do this.

* * *

“Your knees okay?”

Ginny glanced up from where she was removing the icepacks from her knees and taping them up with KT. She was usually fine --- but she’d gone hard this time around. “Get twingey sometimes.”

“Twingey?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Roll with it, old man.” She snorted.

He was silent for a moment, merely watching her and Ginny watched him out of the corner of her eye. She wants to chafe against his gaze, tell him to stop looking at her like that, but she can’t bring herself to tell him to stop looking at her. (The last time a guy looked at her like he was, her life very much nearly imploded in front of her.)

“Nasty scar you got there.” His chin jerked at the six-inch scar that curved along her knee and Ginny pursed her lips.

“Used to be a pitcher, actually,” (Ginny doesn’t see the look of surprise on Mike’s face.)  “Tore a ligament on a landing leg once.” She sighed softly --- remembering that day in particular. Her Dad had been panicked, utterly emotional and wrecked that the dreams he had of Ginny Baker in the major leagues were dying in front of his eyes. “Pretty much shot the chance of being pitcher after that. Any time I came up to throw I contemplated chopping my leg off to deal with the pain.”

“And crouching down for nine innings is beneficial?” He questioned, frowning as he dropped into a seat next to her.

“Don’t ask me to explain it.” Ginny snorted, pressing down on the tape to be sure it was in place before leaning back in her chair. “The twinge is always there, but when I’m down there, makes it a little easier to deal with. My doc says it has something to do with repetitive motions, stretching it out, loosens the ligament up so it’s not always seizing and stagnant.”

“That why you always get this look in your eyes in the bottom of the fifth?”

She paused, glancing over at Mike. Her lips part softly, disbelief and something soft and warm. No one had noticed that look before, aside from her father and that --- what was only because he had most likely been the one to give it to her. (Mike noticing that… it tells her that there might be hope for this partnership afterall.)

“Come on, Baker, you think you’re the only one who can read people around this place?”

Before she can reply, Miller pops up and Mike’s distracted. She’s left sitting in her chair, watching and wondering --- wondering where that rabbit hole will lead if she falls down it so completely.

* * *

(She makes a break for her own corner of the clubhouse, doesn’t hear Tommy Miller call her a bitch, doesn’t hear the way Blip and Mike come to her aid. She’d make the argument she doesn’t need their aid --- she’s heard worse from her own father on occasion, but. That’s what being a team is about, right?)

* * *

“Quite somethin’, huh?” Mike drawls, sitting in one of the seats near the dugout. He must’ve hopped the fence or something and Ginny wishes that that action didn’t at all fit into his profile she has for him.

(What she was also hoping for of course, was a moment on the empty diamond to grasp the reality of this - of being in the majors, but seems that's not in the cards.)

“Lawson.” She replies, smirking as she glances over her shoulder at him.

“Baker.”

Her teeth tug on her bottom lip. “How’d you -”

He snorted. “Remember when I said you weren’t the only one who could read people?” And she knows what he means --- returning to the diamond after the first game must have been something he did too, when he was called up from the Triple A. (She saw that first game of his, remembers the way her father had told her she could pitch like Mike Lawson one day if she gave it everything she had.)

Her tongue darted out, wetting her bottom lip and a soft disbelieving snort left her lips. “I never thought… I would actually make it here.” (She’s not quite sure what compels her to let this part of herself show --- but Ginny can’t expect him to let her in if she doesn’t do the same.) Her eyes glanced over the green of the grass, over the red dirt and white lines, the soft curve of the mound and the sturdiness of home plate. “You know, I went through the system. Kept my head down, called the right plays, played the game, hit the home runs… I did it right, yet, a part of me always thought I’d never get called up.”

“And now you have been.” He nods slowly.

“Now I have been.”

She huffs a breath and walks to the edge of the fence, separating field and stands before making the spilt second choice to hope the fence. She falls into the seat next to him, stretching her legs out, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You gotta trust me. I know — I know it sucks pitching to a 23 year old who has her fair share of issues and is bringin’ the whole storm of ‘ginnsanity’ onto the that diamond, but.” Ginny exhales roughly, and stubbornly refuses to look at him. “This ain’t gonna work less you trust me. I know what I’m doin’.”

(And she fucking does. She’s a ballplayer, like he said. She’s been a ballplayer since she picked that damn ball up in her backyard and she wears that fucking label with pride. She’s known what she was doing as a catcher the moment her father told her to crouch and catch the ball. No one can take that away from her, not even Mike fucking Lawson.)

“Alright.” Mike allows, nodding slightly.

“And you know what, any other player gets called up and you’d probably be tellin’ —”

“I just said you were _right_ , Baker.” He cast a look at her, eyebrows raised and Ginny quiets. “Shit’s happened to me. Not gonna lie. 16 years in the game does that. But…”

“Okay.” She cuts across him. He doesn’t owe her his life story. He just owes her a chance. “So we’re doin’ this.”

Mike laughs, short and sweet. “Seems so.”


End file.
